Building spatial database for cuttack municipal corporation a geospatial technological approach

IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology eISSN: 2319-1163 | pISSN: 2321-7308

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Volume: 05 Issue: 01 | Jan-2016, Available @ http://www.ijret.org 58

BUILDING SPATIAL DATABASE FOR CUTTACK MUNICIPAL

CORPORATION: A GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGICAL APPROACH

Pritirekha Daspattanayak1, Prabhu Prasad Das

2 1,2

Dept. of Applied Geography, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha -753003

[email protected], [email protected]

Abstract

Decentralized governance necessitates participatory approach which is crucial for realizing sustainable development. Accordingly,

the concerned government as well as non-government agencies assume responsibility to plan, execute, manage and monitor social

welfare schemes in a coordinated manner. This in turn, relies on integrated information in the form of database which plays a vital

role in the process of decision making. Despite significant improvements made in the field of database creation and management,

problems of availability and organization of accurate data in the country continue to persist. In this context, the present study is taken

up for building a reliable and accurate geo-database for Cuttack Municipal Corporation, Odisha. The database thus created will

enable information flow for planning and monitoring of various government schemes. The study involves acquisition and integration

of spatial and non-spatial data derived from multiple sources. More often than not, data from these sources suffer from various types

of errors embedded in it. Lack of availability of cutting edge technologies within government enterprises as well as absence of

appropriate manpower with specialized expertise are the underlying reasons of errors in existing databases of Cuttack Municipal

Corporation. The present study proposes a methodological framework towards removal of these errors in spatial information. The

study is based on geospatial technologies of Remote Sensing, Geographic Information System and Global Positioning System in

generating a desired accurate and common geo-database for planning and implementation of social welfare schemes. While Global

Positioning System and Remote Sensing imageries can help enhance the positional accuracies of spatial entities, data management,

analysis and visualization capabilities of Geographic Information System can help build the standard geo-database which can be

shared by policy makers for better implementation of the schemes.

Key words: Geospatial, Database, Remote Sensing, GIS, GPS

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INTRODUCTION

The socio-economic condition in India has undergone a

significant transformation in the wake of rapid

industrialisation and urbanisation in recent times. Urban

centres in the country are said to be the engines of economic

growth. However, existence of common geo-database for

these centres of growth is still very scarce. Provision and

maintenance of basic services and infrastructure to the

common dwellers assume prime significance in planning

processes for sustainable growth and development of the

country. The urban centres of the country and more so in

Odisha, are facing acute space scarcity towards further

development. In the wake of exponential population growth,

these urban centres are expanding in an obvious manner

beyond their limits, a process often explained as „urban

sprawl‟. This haphazard and chaotic spatial expansion needs

appropriate supervision and administration. In order to achieve

and maintain sustainable growth of these cities, the need of the

hour is to up-date, coordinate and integrate database having

both spatial and non-spatial information for sharing between

various government and non-government agencies. This will

form the basis for proper planning, execution, monitoring and

policy making decisions. In other words, the existence of a

common spatial database for the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs)

becomes a necessity rather than an option. Geospatial or geo-

coded database which includes explicit geographical

positioning of particular attributes becomes an integral input

of planning strategies (Bedard, 1999). In this context,

geospatial technologies of Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic

Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System

(GPS) assume utmost significance in building the geospatial

database for these targeted spatial entities.

While the technology of remote sensing has brought a boon in

collecting enormous volume of unbiased spatial data within

determinable accuracy and precision, GIS gives the power of

managing, analyzing and displaying these collected data in a

very efficient manner (Batini, et al 1992; Sheldon, 1993;

Elmasri and Navathe, 1989). Spatial geographic positional

accuracy is added to the collected data with the help of GPS.

Moreover, with the advancement of the technology it is now

possible to make all these spatial information available to not

only decision makers located at different places but also to the

common users on the web platform of internet (Abdelmoty et

al, 1993; Abel, 1989; Abdelmoty 1993).

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THE PRESENT STUDY

In context of the above, the present study endeavours to build

a methodological framework for the creation of geospatial

database for the Cuttack Municipal Corporation.

Fig-1: Location of the study area

The study forms part of a project funded by the Department of

Science and Technology, DST, Government of India. For the

study secondary spatial information related to the city of

Cuttack has been acquired from Cuttack Municipal

Corporation (CMC) and the Survey of India (SOI).

OBJECTIVE

The cardinal objective of the study is to appreciate the

potential efficacy of geospatial technology including RS, GIS

& GPS in creating a spatial database for decentralized

governance of a city and its suburban areas taking Cuttack as

an example. The chief focus, thus, is on methodological

framework towards building a geospatial database for urban-

local bodies.

STUDY AREA

Cuttack is the oldest city of the state of Odisha. One of the

most densely populated urban centres in the country, Cuttack

is an important centre of commercial activities. and along with

its peripheral small and large scale industries constitute one of

the most developed urbanized centres of the country. The city

is subdivided in to 59 wards that come under the jurisdiction

of CMC. The spatial extent of the study area is approximately

from 200 21’ to 20

0 30’ N latitude and 85

0 46’ to 85

0 57’

longitude and covers an area of about 147sq.km. (Fig.1).

The city is sandwiched between Kathajodi, a distributary of

Mahanadi on the south and river Mahanadi itself on the north.

The region is one of the most densely populated areas and no

wonder, has witnessed a lot of urbanization and anthropogenic

activity. The so called „Urban Sprawl‟ of the region can be

witnessed from the significant encroachment of the river beds

along the banks of the two rivers where planned plots for new

settlements can be visualized from satellite imagery. Because

of the two rivers bordering the study area on three sides,

extensive earth embankments can be seen along the periphery

of the city.



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METHODOLOGY

The creation of the geospatial database for any region involves

both primary and secondary sources of data. In the present

case, primary source of data involved the establishment of

ground control points (GCPs) for the pilot study area which

were then used for geo-coding of all the collected maps and

related attribute information along with the acquisition of

positional information of various physical and cultural

features. In this regard a preliminary reconnaissance survey of

the study region was carried out using Survey of India (SOI)

Toposheet number F45T15 with a scale of 1:50,000. For this,

the assistance of some local people was also taken. The survey

established possible site locations for the establishment of

GCP. The tentative locations thus identified are primarily

permanent and static in nature pertaining to various natural

and manmade objects such as intersection of major roads, old

monuments (fort) etc. The final selection of GCPs from

possible site locations was based on the presence of the

concerned features on the collected maps. Primary data

collection involved extensive field visits and use of the

technology of Global Positioning System (GPS).

Secondary sources of information involved the acquisition of

geospatial maps and attribute data from various government

and non-government agencies. The organizations which were

visited for this purpose were Cuttack Municipal Corporation

(CMC), Public Health Department (PHD), Public Work

Department (PWD), Settlement Office, District Education

Office, Cuttack Development Authority (CDA), District

Information Office (DIO), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited

(BSNL), office of the Superintendent of India Post, State

Transport Authority Office, office of the Superintendent of

Traffic Police, Chief District Medical Office (CDMO), Central

Electricity Supply Unit (CESU), Airtel Communication,

ORTEL Communication, Reliance Communication, Cuttack

Malgodam Association, Chhatrabazar Association and

Badambadi Bus Owner‟s Association. For the geospatial

analysis and logic building the SOI Toposheet F45T15 was

used as the base map. This toposheet was georeferencd in GIS

environment with WGS84 World Geographic Coordinate

System by 1st order polynomial (Affine) transformation. For

the sake of homogeneity, all the acquired and collected data

were geo-referenced with the above coordinate system and

transformation procedure. The spatial maps collected from the

CMC was used for the demarcation of ward boundaries

whereas, other secondary sources primarily furnished various

attribute information of the city features and management.

All the above gathered information was then spatially

analyzed to create various thematic layers of the study area

(Fig. 2). Creation of thematic spatial features involved the

process of manual digitization in GIS environment (Abel et al,

1995; Esperança and Samet, 1997; Hjaltason and Samet,

1995). . The digitized spatial objects were validated by

ground-truthing as well as by visual interpretation of Digital

Globe Quick Bird image of Google Earth Web Map Service.

The satellite image formed an integral part for the

interpretation of various physiographic and geomorphic units

of the study area in conjunction with detailed field survey.

DISCUSSION

The geospatial database created for the study area took into

account the various physical and cultural features existing on

the concerned landscape. As described earlier (Section II), the

city is one of the oldest in the country and extensive

urbanization is witnessed along all parts of the region. No

wonder, cultural features dominate the study area with dense

road network. The westernmost part which is being planned

for new settlements somewhat shows semi urban

environments with dense vegetation cover and paleochannels

which are well recognised from satellite imagery. However,

decentralized governance makes the governing authorities to

divide spatial entities into smaller subdivisions for better

management and implementation of schemes. In a like

manner, the CMC has divided the city in to 59 wards for

proper management and monitoring of social welfare schemes.

These imaginary political boundaries are used as the spatial

boundaries by the concerned government, private and public

agencies for planning purposes for which the line departments

assume prime significance. However, effective planning of the

city calls for accurate spatial information which has a common

spatial referencing system. The lack of this standard spatial

information brings in a lot of chaotic scenarios during the

social welfare endeavours by the various line departments as

well as the CMC authorities who also lack in coordination.

This is exactly why, the secondary data acquired from various

agencies displayed significant inconsistency when spatially

interpolated to bring them to a common platform. Hence, for

the removal of this erroneous information SOI toposheet in

combination with the satellite imagery were used as the base

map for spatial referencing system.

It is well established that the accuracy of geocoding of spatial

information depended on the number of ground control points.

Hence a significant number of GCPs i.e. a total of 309 were

acquired from ground truthing and satellite image analysis for

rubber sheet matching between the secondary data sheets and

the base map (Fig. 2).



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Fig-2: Rubber sheet matching of CMC ward map and SOI

toposheets

The root mean square error for this spatial transformation was

kept within 0.5. This spatial matching of the secondary

information also involved the personnel from the concerned

agencies who are primarily engaged on ground

implementation of the schemes. Once the spatial information

was brought to a common referencing platform, overlay

analysis with the acquired satellite imageries was carried out

for validation purpose.

Fig-3. Extracted thematic layers of ward 3, CMC



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Keeping in mind the multi source nature of the acquired data,

a world geographic datum WGS84 was used for geocoding of

all the acquired spatial information to bring in consistency

during analysis.

From the overlay analysis as well as visual interpretation

various physical and cultural feature were digitized including

road network, settlements, permanent huts, plantations,

various manmade architectures, surveyed trees, paleochannels

and earth embankments etc.. The identification and

digitization of all these features also took into account ground

truthing information and the GPS Locational information and

formed the concerned thematic layers of the landscape (Fig.

3). These extracted features of the study area assume prime

importance in decentralizing the planning of the urban

activity. Overlay analysis of the features can be used by

various line departments for their new endeavours as well as

for the proper management of the existing infrastructure.

Similarly futuristic development planning of the region can be

accomplished by thorough site selection from GIS analysis.

The biggest advantage of this spatial database is the common

referencing of all the features with respect to a common base

map which is accurate and unbiased. This has a greater impact

on the coordination between different institutions. More often

than not, it is the lack of proper coordination between various

public departments that brings the chaotic nature of city

urbanization. However, from the capability of periodic

updation of spatial data, the biggest question of urban

development i.e. ‘where’ can be answered. While the

topographic maps for the wards (Fig. 4) gives an overall

synoptic view of the region, the extracted feature layers from

GIS analysis gives specific objective oriented solutions that

can be utilized for human prosperity.

Fig- 4. Physical and cultural features of ward 3, CMC

CONCLUSION

Geospatial database creation assumes a significant position in

the sustainable development of urban-local bodies. A case

study has been carried out for the CMC, Odisha wherein

spatial database for the area has been established to add to the

different government, private and public entities working for

human development. The work establishes the existence

significant errors within the acquired secondary spatial

information which lack in consistency. Elimination of these

spatial errors has been carried out based on extensive ground

truthing and satellites image analysis along with taking into

account the knowledge of involved personnel of different

organizations at ground level. Through the process of manual

digitization and overlay analysis, the studies establishes

various thematic layers of the CMC along with its spatial and

attribute information which shows enormous potential towards

greater coordination and integration between various line

departments, planning agencies and public forums. However,

the study is with respect to a single municipality area and

extension of the research needs to be critically evaluated when

applied to a larger spatial entity.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The study is a part of the project awarded by DST, New Delhi.

The authors sincerely thank DST for its financial support.

They also wish to thank Prof. M.I. Hassan for his valuable

comments. The authors also acknowledge the extended help of

Mr. Nihar Ranjan Sahoo and Mr. Subrat Acharya at different

stages of this study.



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http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hjs/pubs/incnear.ps